


A Disturbing Comfort

by malacophilous (orphan_account)



Series: The Dhampir Cycle [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bloodplay, Closeted Character, Dhampir, F/F, Kinks, M/M, Mutually Unrequited, Non-violent murder, Original Character Death(s), Siblings, Time Skips, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Vampirism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-17
Updated: 2011-05-17
Packaged: 2017-10-29 16:16:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/321759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/malacophilous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With John, being normal is a constant struggle. Sometimes he gives in. Sometimes he caves. Sometimes.</p><p>Second fic in the Dhampir Cycle.  Written pre-S2.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Disturbing Comfort

_‘It was as if the empty nights were made for thinking of him. And sometimes I found myself so vividly aware of him it was as if he had only just left the room and the ring of his voice were still there. And somehow, there was a disturbing comfort in that, and, despite myself, I’d envision his face.’_

-Excerpt from _Interview with the Vampire_ , Anne Rice

 

 

He was married to his work.

 

John cleaned his revolver; it was one of the few things that would calm him.  Piece by piece he dismantled it, his focus able to wander as he went through the familiar motions.  He could do it in his sleep.

 

He was married to his work.

 

Well, that made things less complicated between them, didn’t it?  John could set aside his attraction—for that’s all it was.  Sherlock was brilliant and brave and very easy on the eyes, that was all.  It wasn’t as if John was in love with him or anything; they’d known each other for all of two months.  Two months was like a blink, a flash of momentary discomfort, a brief varying of routine, easily forgotten.  John, who knew from long discussions with his father that unless someone cut off his head with a scythe he wasn’t going to die any time soon, tried to remember that in a century, none of what he felt now would matter.  Sherlock would die eventually, like normal people did, and then John could no longer look at him and feel that warm, squirming ache in the pit of his stomach.  John would go back to being alone, and everything would be all right.

 

Setting his gun aside, John leaned back in his chair, sighing.  He thought of Harry and her string of lovers, of Clara’s drinking and Harry’s drinking from her afterwards that drove them apart, and John wondered if it was possible for him to have a successful relationship even if he tried.

 

 

When John was growing up, he would drink his meals from a glass, seated at the bare table with his father and sister.  It was a clean, relaxing way of going about things, without the humanity attached; in crowded places it was possible, even easy to drink from multiple people and let them live, but a family of three, living in a small village, required far more than a few unobtrusive drinks over the course of an evening.  Thus, they drank from glasses, a large glass carafe the only adornment to the table, full of blood and set atop an electric warmer to keep it from going stale before they had finished.

 

‘When you turn sixteen,’ their father told John and Harry, ‘you’ll make your first kill, but until then I hunt for all of us.’

 

In the weeks leading up to her sixteenth birthday, Harry had been terribly excited.

 

‘I’ve already picked,’ she told John conspiratorially as they sat on the shady porch, looking out through their sunglasses over the parched July lawn.  ‘I want to take the red-haired girl who kennels the dogs when we’re up at school and Dad has to go away on business.’

 

John clenching his fists, releasing them.  ‘Why?  What has she ever done to you?’

 

‘She looks gorgeous,’ said Harry logically, ‘and smells gorgeous, and I _want_ her.’

 

John closed his eyes; even in the shade, even with his glasses, the light was too much sometimes.  ‘Why not just fuck her, instead, if you want her so much?’

 

‘Oh, she wouldn’t have me,’ Harry said, dismissing the notion with a wave of her hand.  ‘Besides, it’s practically the same thing.’

 

John had never understood how Harry could place eating in a sexual context, and the very idea made him feel slightly ill.  ‘It’s not the same thing at all.’

 

‘Ha,’ Harry drawled, lighting a fag, ‘you’ve never watched Dad hunt.’

 

(John had been slightly offended when their father had taken Harry out with him when the sun set, five years before, and said that John ought to sit tight and watch telly because the hunt would upset him.  But when he had seen them come back through the darkened wood behind the house, cradling the lifeless body of an old man from the village who had long suffered from Alzheimer’s—John had gone to see him a few times, read the newspaper to him, read him psalms—John hadn’t been offended anymore.

 

That night was when he decided to devote his life to helping people, healing the sick, saving lives, whether Harry thought it was ridiculous or not.)

 

‘It’s like sex,’ Harry went on, hugging herself and grinning in her anticipation.  ‘When the peace hits them, they go all pliable in your arms and cling to you.  Sometimes they even kiss you, if you do it right.  Women kiss Dad a lot,’ she added, giving John an indulgent look, ‘men sometimes, too.’

 

‘You’re disgusting,’ John whispered.

 

Harry ignored him, too wrapped up in her eagerness to notice the pained look on her little brother’s face.  It had always been that way.  ‘And when you kill them, John, it’s _wonderful_ , or Dad says so, anyway, he hasn’t let me do it yet, but of course I’ve watched him plenty of times.  They writhe against you and _moan_ , John, like they’re coming, if you do it right.  When I _do_ get to kill someone—the girl who minds the corgis—she’ll go out smiling.’

 

‘And then there’ll be a hole where she existed,’ John said, getting to his feet, unable to stand her conversation anymore.  ‘A girl-shaped hole in the village that nothing can fill, and you still won’t be satisfied, will you?  It’s just a meal to you,’ he spat the words like a curse, ‘just a _game_.’

 

Harry sighed.  ‘John, wait—’

 

‘You won’t remember her face!’ John shouted, clenched hands shaking at his sides as he stood on the top step, ready to run, run away from life and into the wood, his refuge.  ‘You don’t even know her name!  But I’ll remember, and her mum will remember, and—and the people whose dogs she looks after.  Who’ll mind the corgis then, Harry?’

 

‘Someone’ll replace her,’ Harry said, exasperated.  ‘There’re always more people, John, they don’t stop being born just because we have someone for dinner.’

 

‘ _It’s not the same!_ ’

 

And John was running, running away like he always did, into the trees, his sunglasses knocked off by a low branch but it didn’t matter, he was in the dark, he was alone, and when he was alone he took out the album in his mind, the images of normal people, and posed his thoughts into their pleasant shapes.

 

 

It was easy to get away at night; John would throw on his coat, nod in Sherlock’s direction and say, ‘Right, I’m going round the pub.’

 

And he did go round the pub—round the back, past the lights and the noise, to a secluded ‘alternative’ club at the opposite side of the building, facing a different street.  It was one of those places where John stuck out a mile, the rest of the patrons being ten years his junior if not more, all dressed in velvet and lace and thick black eye-liner, but they accepted him for what they thought he was, and that was enough.

 

‘Hello, Mun,’ said the girl at the bar just inside the deserted foyer, smiling at him.  She had explained—after having called John that for six weeks—that it was short for Mundane.  John had been more pleased than he let on.  ‘Cruising again?’

 

John nodded, hands in the pockets of his khaki trousers, which were far from adherent to the tacit dress-code of the establishment.  ‘Same as always, Charisma.  What’s the crowd like tonight?’

 

Charisma shrugged, her black-and-neon dreadfall jostling merrily in the blacklight.  ‘Pretty quiet, I mean, it’s Tuesday.  Trystian’s here, of course—bastard never leaves—and Damian and his flavour of the week.  The usual Camden set, as well.’

 

‘Any donors?’ John asked.

 

‘Just a few who came along with their masters, and the twins, but the donor-vamp percentage’s far from even.  You may be in luck.’

 

John smiled at her.  ‘Thanks.’

 

It had been surprisingly easy after the first few attempts, drinking from people when they thought they were drinking from John.  He would lull them into peace, their eyes dilating wide, and, after he had taken only as much as was safe, when they regained their senses they felt sated, an artificially coppery taste in their mouths, not knowing the difference between the feasted and the feast.

 

Eating proper food—food that normal people ate, digested, dispelled—was only for show; it did nothing to nourish him, so John went to the club almost every night, and the regulars were starting to like him.

 

As he drew back the heavy velvet curtain that led to the lounge, a short, bleached-blonde girl waved energetically at him.  ‘Ooh, _John_ , hi!’  She was one of the perky ones, always brimming with energy; an excellent meal.

 

John bowed politely, observing the rather old-fashioned niceties that were expected of him in such a setting.  ‘Evening, Mistress Winter.  Have you had your fill?’

 

‘Not as yet.  Come,’ she said, grinning, taking his hand, turning it to kiss the inside of his wrist, ‘let me drink of your life.’

 

But John drank of hers, instead, sealing the small punctures left by his teeth just as his father had taught him, and in the darkened lounge he felt a familiar calm wash over him as his veins thrummed to fullness and life beneath his skin, the blood bringing with it the warm shiver of pleasure, the cold fist of guilt around his heart.

 

 

‘Going round the pub,’ said John the following night, coat in hand.

 

‘You aren’t,’ said Sherlock.

 

John frowned.  ‘Sorry?’

 

‘You come home smelling of incense rather than alcohol, your shoes don’t bear any signs of having been to the pub in question, and when you return your face is flushed and your eyes glassy, despite not being intoxicated.’

 

John’s shoulders tensed, wondering if Sherlock had deduced the truth—all of the truth—wondering if he would have to defend himself, to leave, but no, Sherlock would find him wherever he went, and would follow, wouldn’t he?  ( _Wouldn’t_ he?)  ‘Your point being?’

 

‘You go to that little goth place one street over, don’t you?’ said Sherlock with a hint of a smile, not looking up from his computer.  ‘It’s all right, John.  There’s no need to be embarrassed; everyone has their particular...’ he made a disdainful face, ‘kinks.’

 

John felt the hot prickling of a blush creep up his neck, and he turned away.  ‘I’d appreciate it if you’d stay out of my personal life,’ he said tersely, and when he shut the door he heard Sherlock say quietly from the room beyond:

 

‘ _Interesting_.’

 

 

The night of his sixteenth birthday John locked himself in his room.

 

‘Come out, son,’ said his father from the hall.  ‘We need to talk.’

 

‘I’m not going to do it, Dad,’ John snapped crossly.  ‘I’m not going to murder some perfectly innocent person.’

 

‘No one is innocent in this world, John,’ his father sighed.  ‘Not a soul is clean.’

 

John punched the locked door with all his not inconsiderable strength, making it rattle on its hinges, leaving a crater in the wood.  ‘That doesn’t give you the right to decide when they die!’

 

‘Fine,’ his father said after a long moment.  ‘We’ll talk about this later.  But please, John, at least warm up some of the leftovers that’re in the freezer, all right?  You’ll get weak.’

 

‘’M not _weak_ ,’ John snarled under his breath, listening to his father’s footsteps descending the stairs.  ‘I’m the strong one.’

 

 

‘Is it the clothes?’ Sherlock mused.  They were in the back of a cab, heading to a crime scene.  ‘Only I can’t see how something so extravagant would tempt a man of your simple tastes.  Is it the attitude?  The literature?’  Sherlock was teasing him, pretending to be grasping at straws.  ‘Surely it’s not the music.’

 

‘Leave it alone, Sherlock,’ said John, sighing, sounding tired.  ‘You’ll never guess.’

 

Sherlock scowled.  ‘I don’t _guess_.’  He scrolled through apps on his phone, stalling for effect.  ‘It’s got to be the vampirism, then.’

 

John stiffened in his seat, clenching his teeth without meaning to.  ‘Of course it’s not.’

 

‘I wonder, though, do you give or receive?’

 

John’s hands curled into fists on his knees.  ‘That’s none of your business.’

 

Sherlock raised an eyebrow.  ‘Of course I’d be surprised if you didn’t go about it carefully—you’re a doctor, after all—so you must have been patronising this particular establishment long enough to establish a firm basis of trust in certain circles.’

 

‘Shut up, Sherlock.’

 

They rode in silence for a few minutes.

 

‘Bit dangerous, isn’t it?’  Sherlock’s eyes were twinkling mischievously.

 

John pinched the bridge of his nose, frowning, glaring out of the window.  ‘Just... shut up, all right?’

 

 

While he was at Barts, John met a boy he liked.  He was kind, gave good advice, blushed beautifully when John complimented him, long lashes demurely shading his eyes, and when John overcame his self-loathing long enough to ask his classmate out for a drink, the answer was _yes, yes, of course, I’d like that_ , without  a second thought.

 

 

Mike Stamford’s nightstand was a clutter of books.

 

‘Bit trashy, this,’ said John, picking up a battered copy of _The Vampire Lestat_ while Mike hunted about for his lighter.

 

‘Oh no, it’s quite good,’ Mike assured him, the cigarette between his lips bobbing as he spoke around it.  ‘The protagonist’s a raging twat, of course, but I can set aside my personal feelings in light of the rampant homoeroticism.  Aha!’  He had finally found his lighter, snapping it to life in his hand, taking a drag of smoke and sighing.

 

John laughed.  ‘Mike, you’re great and all, but I don’t think I’m secure enough in my masculinity to have the term “rampant homoeroticism” thrown about in such a casual fashion.’

 

‘Go on, then,’ said Mike, sliding _Interview with the Vampire_ out from under its stack of sequels, ‘here’s the first one.  Give it a go, and see what you think.’

 

John shook his head, smiling.  ‘I’ll pass.’

 

But the next day, ensconced in a secluded corner of the library, John devoured not only the first volume, but the second and third, as well, and when he realised he was hungry, that he needed to hunt soon, a dull, buzzing pleasure streaked across his mind.  God, he shouldn’t be thinking like this, it was _horrible_ of him.  It was cruel to use someone like that, food was food: sustenance and nothing else.  Sexuality brought the human element back into it, making the person real, with feelings and desires and needs, and even though the idea made John uncomfortable he realised that Harry, in all her talk of the hunt being a grand thing, might have been right.

 

 

John stared at the dark ceiling of his dark bedroom in the flat he shared with Sherlock, eyes not paining him (for a change), struggling against his body even as it betrayed him in countless other ways.

 

 _Everyone has their particular... kinks._

 

Sherlock wasn’t interested.

 

 _Do you give or receive?_

 

Sherlock was married to his work.

 

 _Bit dangerous, isn’t it?_

 

Married.

 

 _Interesting._

 

To his work.

 

John would be good.  He would be normal, average, mundane, and shove the thought from his mind, delete it, just like Sherlock did.

 

His unbidden erection pushed snugly against the front of his pyjama trousers, its weight and heat mocking him as he turned his pillow over, punched it into shape, and tried in vain to fall asleep.

 

 

‘How do you feel about role-playing?’ John asked Mike.  They had been having drinks and sex with each other for about half the term, but not much else.  Neither felt the need to uncork any hackneyed words of short-lived devotion; they were both too sensible for that.

 

‘Curious, since it’s coming from you,’ Mike laughed, ‘Mr John Missionary Position Look-Into-My-Eyes Watson.’

 

John threw a pillow at him.  ‘I just wondered if you’d like me to...’ he hesitated, wondering if it would sound stupid, ‘to bite you, and things.’

 

Mike’s eyes lit up.  ‘Louis-and-Lestat sort of biting and things?’

 

‘Yeah,’ said John, looking at his hands, slightly embarrassed.

 

But Mike’s response was _yes, yes, of course, I’d like that_ , without a second thought, and John, despite himself, gave in to what he was.

 

 

Sherlock lay sprawled across the sofa, deep in thought, patch-covered arms crossed loosely above his head and draped over the armrest, wearing that dark shirt, purple-blue-indigo-something-dark, the top three buttons carelessly-shamelessly-temptingly left undone, his long white neck taunting John from across the room.

 

John could see his pulse.  John could hear it, smell it, almost _taste_ it but no, Sherlock wasn’t food, he was a person, he was his friend-colleague-flatmate-whatever-he-was, John trusted him and Sherlock (or so it appeared) trusted in return.  He wasn’t going to give in to that desire, he _couldn’t_.  Sherlock wasn’t interested in him as anything other than his friend-colleague-flatmate-whatever, which meant that his blood was off-limits.  It was different than with the people at the club, the people who pretended to the need that tore at John through every waking moment; it had been different with Stamford with his _yes, yes, of course_ , years ago, playing at being fiction when oh, it wasn’t, it wasn’t at all. It would be tantamount to assault to drink from Sherlock without having his interest, first.  He was out of bounds.  He was married to his work.

 

‘You’re staring at my jugular vein,’ Sherlock said quietly from where he reclined.

 

John tried to laugh it off.  ‘I’m making sure your pulse isn’t racing from the excessive amount of nicotine in your system.’

 

‘You’re not,’ Sherlock told John even as he gazed at the ceiling.  ‘Your eyes are marginally dilated, and your rate of respiration is elevated.’

 

‘How can you know that,’ John demanded, ‘without even looking at me?’

 

‘Genius,’ he answered smugly.

 

John, irritated with himself more than with Sherlock, went back to reformatting his blog, fiddling with the sidebar but not really changing anything.

 

Ten minutes later, Sherlock said with his eyes closed, ‘I don’t mind.’

 

‘Don’t mind what?’

 

Sherlock smiled slightly, guardedly.  ‘That you’re looking.’

 

 

John hadn’t spoken to Harry since he got back from Afghanistan, but when he phoned her she was just the same as always.

 

‘John, you slag, how the hell are you?  How’s the shoulder?’

 

‘Fine,’ said John.

 

‘Still being Norman Normalson?’

 

He sighed.  ‘I eat food, now.’

 

Harry laughed.  ‘I’m not surprised.’

 

John hesitated over the question, but it forced its way out through his voice, half-formed.  ‘Have you found anyone?  I mean, Clara and all, I know you can’t stand being alone.’

 

Harry made a noise that could have been a self-deprecating snort, or just static on the line.  ‘I’m never alone, John.  I hunt every night.  Why did you call?’

 

John told her.

 

‘So just pin him to the wall and fuck him, for the love of God!’

 

‘Harry, I can’t do that!  He’s not interested.’

 

‘He is _so interested_.’

 

‘He isn’t.’

 

‘He just likes watching you squirm.’

 

John had to admit that she might be onto something.  ‘Possibly.’

 

‘His whole cold, calculating, asexual-plant-man thing is naught but a clever, wily ruse.’

 

God, his sister was ridiculous.  ‘It’s not.’

 

‘Why are you asking me about this, then?  You must have known my answer would be to fuck the logic out of him and chomp his neck like a juicy, gorgeous man-steak.’

 

John laughed despite himself.  ‘I think I just needed to hear you say that.  Thanks, Harry.’

 

‘Any time.’

 

 

‘ _Yes,_ ’ Mike hissed, arching off John’s bed, his stocky played-rugger-for-the-old-school body colliding with John’s.  ‘ _Fuck_ , John, how are your teeth so sharp?’

 

‘It’s all in how you use them,’ John softly lied, nipping at his neck once, twice, and then John allowed his fangs to extend, to pierce, to bring forth the blessed flow that saved him, saved him from himself.

 

 

‘You’re staring at my throat again,’ Sherlock announced.

 

‘I’m not, really,’ said John.  ‘Just thinking.’

 

Sherlock tossed aside his book and whirled into an upright position on the sofa, laying his palms flat against the coffee table, leaning forward aggressively, pinning John with narrowed eyes.  ‘You’re thinking about how you want to sink your teeth into my neck and suck the life out of me as I buck against you and scream.’

 

John was instantly blushing, his hearing muffled as if he were underwater, the room roaring around him.  ‘ _God_ , Sherlock,’ he said, forcing a laugh, looking away.  ‘God, that’s ridiculous.’

 

Sherlock smiled, eyes still dangerously keen as he stared John down.  ‘Is it?’

 

‘I...’  John didn’t know what to do, didn’t know what to say, should he lie, should he fight it, should he surrender?  ‘Sherlock, I...’

 

‘Goodnight,’ said Sherlock, getting to his feet and striding casually down the hall to his room.  ‘Don’t forget the lights.’

 

 

He was married to his work.

 

Piece by piece he dismantled it.  His focus was able to wander as he went through the familiar motions.

 

 _(Sink your teeth into my neck)_

 

He was married to his work.

 

 _(And suck the life out of me)_

 

Sherlock wasn’t interested.

 

 _(As I buck)_

 

Sherlock was married to his work.

 _(Against you)_

 

Married.

 

 _(And scream.)_

 

To his work.

 

 

His office was empty, so John went to the lab.

 

‘Oh, John,’ said Stamford, smiling.  ‘Looking for Sherlock?’

 

‘No,’ said John, ‘I’m looking for you.’

 

And there was that _yes, yes, of course, I’d like that_ , and they had both changed, less young, less whole, but undeniably themselves, and they ordered the same drinks, laughed the same self-conscious laughs, and in Stamford’s flat, against a bookcase devoid of Anne Rice novels, John pinned his lover and allowed his fangs to extend.


End file.
